


in knots

by M0stlyVoid



Series: Kinktober 2020 [27]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco Malfoy Has Long Hair, Established Relationship, Hair Braiding, Hair Kink, Hair-pulling, Harry Potter Has Long Hair, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:47:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27275185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M0stlyVoid/pseuds/M0stlyVoid
Summary: Harry grew his hair long to get away from his past. Draco did it to confront his.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Series: Kinktober 2020 [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948741
Comments: 30
Kudos: 261





	in knots

**Author's Note:**

> the october 27 prompt for kinktober 2020 is— _hair pulling_.

Harry’s not sure exactly what made him decide to grow his hair out.

He kept it military-short the summer after the War; he was tired, and heartsick, and being pulled in a hundred different directions by friends and family and funerals and trials and the Ministry, and in a fit of irritated pique one morning, when he was running late to a memorial service at Hogwarts because he couldn’t get his damn curls to cooperate, he used the same spell he used to shave his face on his scalp, and showed up with a buzz-cut that set the entire crowd of mourners and reporters and looky-lous muttering amongst themselves.

He’d never gone _that_ short again, but for about a year, it was just easier to keep it clipped high and tight, to be able to forget about it after his showers and just go about his day. Ginny liked the velvet-soft texture it got at that length, and Harry liked that it made him look—adult, sort of. When he stared at himself in the mirror in those months, the harsh style made the lines of his face look like a man’s, like someone who should be listened to, and his mother’s eyes and the scar that saved the Wizarding world were unignorable, undeniable with nothing to distract from them.

It also helped when he was in Auror training. Everyone cut their hair short in the corps, the men and women both, and it made Harry feel like part of a team, like he was just a cog in a machine, an important one to be sure but not the _only_ one, no more special than anyone else he went on missions with. Not vital to a victory. Not _chosen_.

But then, the nightmares came back after a few months of freedom, and he woke up screaming more often than he didn’t, and the rugged lines of his jaw and cheekbones became angular, then skeletal as he stopped sleeping, stopped eating, stopped _anything_ in favour of pursuit of the mission, and finally that next fall, sixteen months after the war, thirteen months after the last time Harry slept peacefully, three months after Ginny moved back home and Harry hadn’t even noticed for a week that she’d left him, Ron sat him down and said that if Harry didn’t get some _help,_ didn’t start to put _himself_ first for once, Ron would have to stop seeing him, because it hurt too much to watch Harry fade in on himself.

It wasn’t until years later that Harry learned that Ron had to have a similar conversation with Hermione. He won’t take credit for it, doesn’t like to talk about it at all, but Harry and Hermione both know that Ron saved them that autumn.

Harry had never made a conscious decision to stop keeping his hair so military-short, but after a few months of therapy, after he quit the Aurors and focused on redoing Grimmauld into a home that brought him peace and joy whenever he walked in the door, he noticed that his curls were back, and from there he just let it go on. Then, he noticed that with every inch it grew past his chin, he looked less and less like James Potter, less like a living monument to a man who would never reach the age Harry now was, who had been mythologized past the point of humanity; and, well, he liked that too, liked not having people see his parents as the first thing they noticed when they looked at him.

Now, it’s long enough that he usually wears it in a bun, to keep it out of his eyes when he’s combing the stacks at the Magical Institute’s library for whatever obscure research tome he needs. He finally understands Hermione’s fanaticism about the library, now that he’s a research fellow in the Dark Arts Theory department; it’s quiet, and soothing, and he can lose himself for hours, and give himself a break from his own thoughts.

The library is also where he and Draco reconnected.

Harry had been finishing his undergraduate degree and was knee-deep in his thesis and applications for post-graduate study, and he’d been hunting for a specific book on the impact of long-term Dark magic exposure on inanimate family heirlooms that had their own inherent bloodline magic, and _Draco sodding Malfoy_ had the book, and it was overdue, and it had lead to a shouting match that got them both banned from the library until Harry provided sufficient baked goods as an apology, and Draco paid for a refurbishment of the study stalls, and the rest was history.

Draco’s hair is long, too, but he didn’t come by it in the same careless, relaxed way Harry did. He keeps it the exact same length Lucius did, although he’s stopped straightening it, letting his natural waves come through. He’d been shorn during his short stint in Azkaban (he’d only been in for about five weeks, and Harry doesn’t know what happened to get him out so quickly; isn’t sure he wants to know, to be honest), and Harry had seen him with the barest hints of regrowth in the photos in the paper, but by the time they re-met at the Institute, it was long again, glossy and thick and falling halfway to his waist in a shining white-blonde sheet.

Harry asked him about it, once, as Draco sat cross-legged on the floor, Harry on the couch behind him carefully practicing his French-braiding after he’d begged Ginny to teach him. Draco’s always favoured his father, with his skin and his hair and his eyes (although there’s a warmth to them that Lucius never had); didn’t he want to distance himself, to look like his own man?

Draco had been quiet before he answered, and Harry had been afraid he’d been offensive, but finally Draco finally said, “I want people to _see_ me. I want them to see the Malfoy legacy, and feel obligated to acknowledge that I’m _different,_ that I’ve broken away from what I was taught and how I behaved when I was younger. I want to confront people with the reality of my heritage, and force them to admit that people _can_ change, that anyone can be good if they try.”

Harry hadn’t known what to say to that, but he thought Draco understood the silence that followed his statement, and Harry made his admiration clear in other ways.

Of course, Harry has his own, less-savoury reasons for preferring Draco’s hair long.

He didn’t know until a few months into their relationship, when Draco had already moved into Grimmauld Place, but Draco loves having his hair pulled.

Oh, he’d noticed that when Draco went down on him he was always much more enthusiastic if Harry had a tight grip on his ponytail, but it wasn’t until a round of angry sex after a vicious argument over who was responsible for picking up which groceries (ah, the travails of newly living with someone), and Harry had been fucking Draco against the wall, slow and deep, and he’d snuck his hand up and tangled it in Draco’s hair and pulled back sharply to expose his neck, and Draco had come all over the wall with a shout, that Harry realized just _how much_ he liked it.

He tried to talk about it, but like everything related to their sex life in those early days, Draco got defensive and shy, so Harry resolved to just try things out and keep his eyes open.

It’s been a few years since then, and Draco’s opened up a bit more, and Harry’s figured out _exactly_ what he likes.

When Draco’s on his knees, he likes when Harry holds his hair back from his face and uses it to direct how fast he should go, how deep he should take Harry’s cock. He likes being _held_ when Harry comes, and Harry hadn’t been sure at first, but now the sight of Draco pulling back, gasping and choking as he swallows Harry’s come, is almost enough to get him hard again.

When Draco’s on all fours and Harry’s fucking him from behind, he likes when Harry pulls his hair back so hard and so tight that his neck is arched to the point of discomfort. He likes feeling pinned in place, he’d said once, likes feeling like if he tried to reposition he’d hurt himself, likes letting Harry decide exactly when and how he gets to move.

And when they’re doing this…

Draco thrusts up, and Harry whines; they’re on the couch, and Harry’s riding Draco, and they’re pressed together so closely Harry can feel Draco’s nipples hard against his stomach, and the angle is _just right_ so that every thrust brings Draco’s cock against Harry’s prostate.

“Fuck, Harry,” Draco says lowly, hands roaming all over Harry’s back. “You’re so _tight_.”

Harry moans in response and presses his lips to Draco’s forehead, lifting and sinking back down with his thighs, squeezing his eyes closed in a desperate effort to stop from coming too soon. His cock is rubbing between their torsos, over skin slicked with precome, and he can feel heat building in his thighs, and from the way Draco’s trembling under him, they’re both nearly there.

Harry tightens his grip on the long loop of Draco’s hair he’d wrapped around his fist earlier and yanks back, exposing the long, tense line of Draco’s neck, dotted with red and purple bruises from Harry’s earlier attentions. Draco hisses and pulls against Harry’s hold just a bit, just enough to make his eyes water from the sting, and Harry sighs and bends down to bite at his collarbone.

Draco will wear these marks for _weeks,_ at the rate Harry’s going. The thought makes his cock twitch and his teeth clamp down even further.

Draco’s nails score lines down Harry’s back, and he thrusts up once more and comes with a cry, leaning back against the couch and slitting his eyes at Harry, who tugs sharply once more on Draco’s hair before he comes all over their stomachs.

“Shit,” Draco sighs, pulling Harry closer, hands drifting down to trace over Harry’s hole, which is starting to leak his come as he softens inside Harry’s body. “ _God,_ Harry. What brought this on? _Not_ that I’m complaining,” he adds hastily, when Harry makes a fake-disgruntled noise and pretends like he’s going to leave, moving his hands to the back of the couch to push himself free.

Sinking back into Draco’s arms, Harry shrugs. “Dunno. You know how I feel about how your hair looks after you use that special...whatever it is potion. All shiny and curly. I can’t resist.”

Draco’s voice is smug. “Well, of _course_ you can’t; look at me.” He swishes his hair over them, tickling the back of Harry’s neck with the strands.

“Self-involved wanker,” Harry mutters, shifting a bit and settling down into Draco’s lap, dozing a bit. It’s not exactly comfortable, with their skin smeared with Harry’s spend and Draco’s cock softening inside him, but sex with Draco always leaves him filled with lassitude and a desire to just lie there and let Draco pet and soothe him until he regains his energy. “I shouldn’t encourage this.”

“You love it,” Draco says, confident and assured in a way that he never was about the way Harry feels for him at the start of the relationship.

“God help me, I do,” Harry mumbles into Draco’s neck before he drifts off.

**Author's Note:**

> the tumblr post for this fic is [here](https://bonesliketambourines.tumblr.com/post/633432946122113024/kinktober-day-27-in-knots).


End file.
